“Does what it does really well” – Redhead by the Side of the Road by Anne Tyler #booker2020 #longlist
“More than a travelogue” – Sovietistan by Erika Fatland
“Well researched historical fiction” – The Ninth Child by Sally Magnusson
“Well written, disturbing” – The Discomfort of Evening by Marieke Lucas Rijneveld (trans. by Michele Hutchison)
“Wonderful and thrilling” – When We Cease to Understand Things by Benjamín Labatut (trans. by Adrian Nathan West)
“Difficult to categorise” – Unquiet by Linn Ullmann (trans. by Thilo Reinhard)
“Classic Hornby” – Just Like You by Nick Hornby
“My Patti Smith WOW moment “ – Year of the Monkey by Patti Smith
“It’s very complicated” – The Secret Commonwealth by Philip Pullman
“Doesn’t disappoint” – Piranesi by Susannah Clarke
“This is the best of times…” – D – A Tale of Two Worlds by Michel Faber
“An astonishing achievement” – Shuggie Bain by Douglas Stuart #booker2020
“Think chocolate cake and a warm bath” – Dear Reader: The Comfort and Joy of Books by Cathy Rentzenbrink
“Genuinely bizarre” – Aoyade on Top by Richard Ayoade
“A treacle read” – Breasts & Eggs by Mieko Kawakami
“A dual pay-off” – Underland by Robert Macfarlane
“It feels like there is truth here” – Hamnet by Maggie O’Farrell #womensprize2020
“Easy to fall into” – Isabelle in the Afternoon by Douglas Kennedy
“An undemanding page-turner” – Such a Fun Age by Kiley Reid #booker2020
“Like a worn-out albino slipper ” – Earwig by B Catling
“It is perfectly okay not to be okay” – How to Stay Sane in an Age of Division by Elif Shafak
“Beautifully expressed piece of social commentary” – The Topeka School by Ben Lerner
“Enjoyable and entertaining” – To Cook a Bear by Mikael Niemi (trans. by Deborah Bragan-Turner)
“Uncompromising” – The New Wilderness by Diane Cook #booker2020
“We applaud it” – Mongrel by Sayra Begum
“Akin to being emotionally flayed” – On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong
“Half-baked” – Love and Other Thought Experiments by Sophie Ward #booker2020
On the Pile: August 2020
